Love makes us liars.
This quote appears relatively in the beginning of the book and paraphrases Jace words from the previous book, City of Bones. The idea still remain in City of Class and maybe is even more predominant that in City of Bones. Here, not only Jace lies to protect Clary, but we also find about things withhold by Jocelyn, Luke and Simon in order to protect those close to them. Love is what drives them to make the decision to hide certain things believing that the truth will hurt too much those close to them. In the end, the truth comes out and if the characters had in the beginning a noble motiv, they end up hurting those close to them anyway.
A true vampire knows he is dead. He accepts his death. But you, you think you are still one of the living. It is that which makes you so dangerous. You cannot acknowledge that you are no longer alive.
Simon’s view regarding his status as a vampire is clear from what Raphael said. Even if Simon should technically be a part of a vampire clan, give up his human family and friends and acknowledge that he is in fact part of something bigger, he consciously chooses to ignore his current condition. He remains the same and he lives his life just like before, not letting himself be affected by the fact that he is no longer a human. For Raphael, this makes Simon a danger to the vampire clans. Because he doesn’t acknowledge the fact that he is a vampire, he will be more careless when concerning keeping a low profile or being concerned with keeping the vampires’ existence a secret.
People aren’t born good or bad. Maybe they’re born with tendencies either way, but it’s the way you live your life that matters.
The idea that Simon promotes is that there is that destiny doesn’t dictate weather a person is automatically evil or good. Even if that person is influenced by certain circumstances, he or she still has the choice to decide if they want to do what is good or bad. This applies to Jace who thinks he has demon blood in him. Because of this, Jace blames his nature for the bad decisions he takes and even thinks that he has no other choice but do what is bad because that is what is expected of him. the reality is different however and the idea that a person is naturally evil or bad is proved to be wrong in the end.
